'55 Ford car instrument repair

[Daves55Sedan]

I had done all I could to correct faulty guage readings and constantly faltering speedometer mechanism, although in the past was able to correct speedo malfunctions several times by cleaning and re-oiling. I decided to also remove my electric clock from the dash and get it repaired.
I removed the speedo mechanism, fuel and temp guages from the instrument cluster, created protective cardboard & foam barriers along with the clock and packed them in a box.
I set out to investigate instrument repair services shops and sent out bids to three different shops. By Nov 27th, I had received quotes back from all three and finally selected Williamsons Instruments in Chester Arkansas to do the work. Reason why I picked them is that they were offering a decent guarantee on their work, while the other bidders had shallow warrantys, and Williamsons was a little more reasonably priced (for the work I had requested done) than the other two guys.
I had everything packed in one box and shipped it on Dec 7th, 2018. It was expected to be received there by Dec 11th.
The shop called me on Dec 17th and said that the guages and speedometer were done and there was no problem with them. He said he would repair the clock, but wanted to run it in his shop for one week before calling it good and shipping everything. Many weeks went by and I had wondered if the shipment got lost during shipping or something. I called and left a message for him to send the tracking number. A few days later after receiving no word from him, I sent an e-mail requesting the tracking number.
Finally on Feb 19th, there was a reply to my e-mail. He apologized for the delay and indicated he needed to swap my clock with a different one, but said it could be finished in one week.
March 12th I was still waiting and wondering what was happening with my stuff. I called him that afternoon and he said everything was finished and boxed up and it would be in the mail in the morning. I actually received the shipment on Saturday, Mar 16th.
As I write this, nothing has been installed in the car yet, although I have re-installed the rebuilt speedo and re-calibrated guages in the instrument cluster on the workbench.
Inspecting the shipment, here's what I find:
Clock: He sent a completely different '55 Ford Westclox electric clock, identical to mine and sent my clock back with it. It appears that he has the clock speed adjusted during the testing stage. The clock he had in stock had a badly corroded chrome bezel, so he swapped my good bezel and put the bad bezel on the non-functioning clock, same thing for the chromed hand adjustment knob. He used the good clear plastic lens that was on his clock instead of the cracked one that was on mine. He also repainted the clock hands with the fluorescent orange paint I sent him along with the instruments.
Fuel sending unit: It was previously cleaned and protected with acid-etch many years ago and still looked good when I sent it to him. Now, it appears that the top is painted black, which should be un-necessary. He polished up the brass push-on terminal and also installed a new float on the float arm (which I did not request). I did not send the unit with the float attached as I feared it might incur damage during shipment. Oh well.
Temperature sending unit: I sent him a brand new one along with the instruments for testing only. He returned it. It appears to be still as good as new.
Guages: I am hoping that he did get both guages re-calibrated with my sending units properly. They don't look any different, except that he beefed up the paper insulator on the back of each guage. I had already re-painted the needles on the guages prior to shipping out, and had told him they did not need to be re-painted again.
Speedometer mechanism: The unit I sent him was having problems hanging up and then completely died. The very tip of the needle was also broken off. It appears he went through a lot of work with this thing. He cut off the whole back of the mechanism and either replaced it with a different one including it's guts, or just did that to pick it all apart for a thorough cleaning. Then he soldered the back on to the mounting portion at the front. It appears ha also installed a completely different odometer that has good numbers on it. Some of the numbers on my original odometer were wiped out. He replaced my bad needle with a good needle and apparently painted the back of it with the fluorescent orange paint.
This whole thing costed $820.00 including shipping back to me. Per my request, he did use the same protective packaging for the components I had everything backed in, but used a bigger box due to the addition of a second clock.
So far, my only complaint is how long it took to get this stuff back and that there was a lack of communication around the new year which had me worried.
I hope to have everything re-installed in the car by late next week and intend to report back about how everything functions or if there are any problems.